


Lilac

by transkakashi



Series: Lightning's Legacy [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Trans Character, Trans Kakashi, world expansion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 15:51:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8630212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transkakashi/pseuds/transkakashi
Summary: Lilac symbolises youthful innocence.Nahashi Juuna realised that she had the ability to manipulate chakra when she was six years old.





	1. Innocence

Nahashi Juuna realised that she had the ability to manipulate chakra when she was six years old.

Every child in the village, whether they came from shinobi or civilian parents, was tested for chakra development between their sixth and seventh birthday. On the first of March, the first day of autumn, med nin and tired chuunin would gather and set up tables, booths, check their clip boards and then call names from their list of everyone who had turned six since the last year.

The civilians who wanted nothing to do with the ninja in the village cooperated for two reasons – firstly, uncontrolled chakra was dangerous, not just to everyone around a child, but especially for the child themselves. Out of control chakra could damage internal organs and the brain, and knowing that it was there meant that virtually all of it could be avoided, through simple exercises that would allow the chakra flow in the body to be controlled. Secondly, it was law. All children had to be checked, because no talent could be wasted in a ninja village.

Juuna had been born in May, so she’s one of the oldest children to still be tested. Most of her class had been tested already, with only two coming back as positive. She lived in a civilian area, and most of the children who were her friends came from civilian families. Chakra could suddenly appear in a child whose parents had none at all, but it was rare, and most children with strong chakra lines had at least one ninja parent. Juuna had two civilian parents, so she was pretty sure that her test would come back negative. In her mind, there was no other alternative; her parents had complained about having to organise around something that wouldn’t affect them or their daughter in any way, and their attitude had been passed on, pressed into Juuna’s six year old brain. It was just a fact, like how her mother did the washing on Saturday and Wednesday, or how she had to brush her teeth before bed. Something unchangeable and sure. Juuna’s young mind had no capacity to grasp what ninja did, or even what chakra really was. The most she had was rumours and gossip spread through her class, children changing the story drastically with every retelling until Juuna had heard at least three different outcomes of a simple statement without realising that they had the same origin.

Her mother’s hand was grasped firmly around her own, not letting her scamper over to play with one of her schoolmates while they waited in line. Juuna was bored, thirsty and her feet itched. Her mother had made sure she was wearing her nice stockings and shoes, and Juuna didn’t like them one bit. The ninja that she could see were tired, with dark circles around their eyes. She looked, wide eyed, at the bandages that all of them were wearing. She couldn’t see any ninja that wasn’t injured walking around and organising who would go where, and it scared her. She heard her parents talking, about the skirmishes along the border and what was happening, about how war seemed more imminent with every day that passed. She knew that war would be a bad thing, whatever it was, and the ninja seemed to reflect it. Juuna didn’t know what the ninja did, but they all looked tired.

After what seemed like hours and hours of waiting, Juuna and her mother were finally taken to a small table, cloth walls dampening the sound of everything that came from outside. As soon as the curtain was pulled shut to give them some privacy, stillness descended in the small fake room that they were in.

A woman in a white coat smiled at Juuna. Juuna didn’t smile back – she was thirsty and wanted to go and play with her friends, and she was missing out on school for this weirdness, which won’t change her life at all.

The woman asked her to hold a piece of paper, which Juuna took after being prompted by her mother, annoyed at the task. She held onto it while the woman and her mum say lots of adult things, things with long words that she doesn’t know and doesn’t understand. While they argue, she scowled and looked at the paper, blaming it for her problems. As if reacting to her temper, the paper wrinkled a little bit and started dropping water on the table. Juuna though that that was good – it was annoying her, so it should cry.

She only realised there’s silence in the tent after one droplet echoed weirdly. Juuna looked up to see her mother staring at the paper, face white, and the woman smiling at her _still,_ and Juuna didn’t like her or her fake smiles. Real smiles have teeth in them, and fake smiles with no teeth are for when you’re pretending to be nice to someone because mum told you to. The woman’s smile has no teeth, and Juuna distrusted it.

The woman took her paper away, which confused and annoyed Juuna in equal measure – why had she given it to her if she’d only wanted it back? – and the woman and her mum talk some more, still using big words really fast. Juuna thinks her mum looks worried though, like when dad hasn’t come back from work and it was dark already. Juuna leant up against her side, and her mother wrapped an arm around her, hugging her too tightly to be nice. Juuna scowled through that as well. Did nothing make sense here?

The woman asked her to pick up one half of a ball that’s stuck to a string that’s stuck to another ball, and Juuna did reluctantly. She was _six,_ she didn’t need to play with baby toys any more. The woman asked her to put it on the table while still holding it, and to try and move the other ball by focusing on it and _pushing_ at it, but not with her hands.

Juuna thought that made no sense at all, and she muttered it to her mum. Her mum smiled a fake smile and told her just to _try it sweetie, and then we can leave_ and Juuna wanted to leave so she picked up her ball with her hands and sighed. If she wasn’t moving her ball, then there would be no way to move the other ball, even if they are connected by a string. The game makes no sense, but Juuna tried anyway, pouting at the other ball and is angry with it, but only in her head, pushing and shoving it like she would if one of the boys at school had pulled her hair. It’s the thing that’s keeping her here, so it’s easy enough – and to her surprise, it does move. Not a lot, but enough that she heard her mum gasp, and the woman smiled a real smile, with lots of teeth.

They tell her that she can stop, so she does. But they don’t leave – her mum and the woman talk and _talk,_ about nothing at all, or so it seemed to her. She didn’t know how adults have this skill, talking about nothing for _ages_ when they could just leave already – but they do, eventually, and Juuna, child-like, puts the ball game out of her mind as she begs her mum to take her to school for the rest of the day so she can play and maybe learn another letter in the alphabet. She’s good at those, and she likes tracing the lines of the sounds, saying them to herself silently.

Her mum said they can, and Juuna celebrates, but only inside, because if she celebrated outside by shouting and laughing then maybe her mum will change her mind. She followed her mother outside, not noticing her frown, or how pale her face is. 


	2. Humility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While lilac means humility.

Nahashi Juuna realised she was going to become a medical ninja at ten years old.

She’d insisted on going to the ninja academy when she’d found out that she could manipulate chakra, and her parents had sent her there when she was eight – a year older than most of the people in her class, but that was okay. She was from a civilian family (that was what she’d learnt the ninja called the not ninja kids) and the extra year of growth gave her an advantage over kids who already knew a lot more about the ninja world than she did.

One day in class, their sensei was giving a presentation on the hospital, with a medical ninja there to demonstrate. It was a routine lesson, and Juuna had pushed it out of her mind when the bell had rung, signalling the free time they had for lunch. She’d been challenged by one of her friends to get to the end of the monkey bars in twenty seconds, and she was ready to do it.

Standing on the platform before the monkey bars, Juuna huffed as she stared them down, her friends cheering and laughing. Juuna jumped up and grabbed the first bar, then confidently swung to the next, then the next. On the fourth, there was something slippery that made her grip slide, she didn’t know what. As she desperately lunged for the next bar to stop herself from falling, her hand slipped, and she panicked, twisting in the air as she tried to reach for the next bar. With an awkward _thud,_ Juuna hit the ground hard, and she heard something _snap_ in her arm.

Snarling at the sudden pain, she curled into ball, cradling her arm. Her friends buzzed around her, but Juuna ignored them, stubbornly refusing to move or look at anyone in case she started to cry.

“Hey there,” a soft voice said. Juuna looked up to see the med nin sitting next to her, an open expression on her face. “Are you alright?”

Juuna stared at the ground. “I think my arm’s broken,” she mumbled, after it was clear that the med nin was waiting for her to speak.

“Let me see if I can doing anything to fix it,” the ninja said. Juuna reluctantly sat up, then watched, pain half-forgotten, as the ninja’s hand began glowing softly. The chakra was almost visible, and Juuna felt her pain drain away as it touched her skin. She tried to sit as still as she could, to let the ninja work.

“I’ve mostly just gotten rid of the pain for now,” the ninja finally said. “It’s not badly broken, but I can’t heal broken bones in a few minutes. You’re going to have to come back to the hospital with me to get a cast on it.”

With her arm no longer in pain, Juuna followed the med nin’s instructions as to how to hold it while she was excused from class. The ninja picked her up when they were outside, and Juuna laughed as they jumped across the village roofs, the world spinning past them in a blur. She couldn’t make out most of what was going on, but that was fine – the wind in her hair was good, and the speed they were jumping at was more than enough to occupy her.

At the hospital, Juuna waited impatiently as she examined by another medical ninja, and then sat through the annoying process of getting a cast fit to her arm. The whole thing was taking far too long in Juuna’s opinion, but since she could ask the ninja who was with her questions about medical ninjutsu, it was okay. She was pretty sure the med nin was laughing at her, a little bit, but she answered all of Juuna’s questions seriously, explaining the workings of the hospital in a way that Juuna could understand. When she asked about the medical ninjutsu that she had used on Juuna though, the med nin smiled at her.

“Ah, it’s a bit complicated. If you were a medical ninja, I’d tell you, but since you’re only at the Academy, you’ll probably forget it by tomorrow.”

Enraged by the answer, Juuna fumed through the rest of the session in silence. The only good part was when her mum came to pick her up and they got ice cream on the way home.

The next day after school ended, she was back at the hospital. The man at the front desk asked her who she was looking for, but Juuna shrugged. She hadn’t asked for the name of the med nin who had treated her. She told the man that she had been at the Academy yesterday, and he nodded knowingly.

“Ahh, that’ll be Yoshina, then. She’s… right over there, actually.” He pointed towards where Juuna could now see her familiar med nin – Yoshina.

Yoshina looked surprised when Juuna pulled at her coat. “Juuna-chan? What are you doing here?”

“You said I wouldn’t remember tomorrow if you told me about how medical ninjutsu worked,” Juuna said, her shoulders set stubbornly. “I’m here tomorrow. Now. And I want to know.”

Yoshina blinked twice before smiling a little. “Ah. Alright then, I suppose it won’t hurt if I show you what’s going on, as long as you stick close to me, and don’t run off, alright?”

Juuna nodded enthusiastically. For the rest of the afternoon, she followed Yoshina around, never far from her. Yoshina explained what she was doing as she attended to the people who wanted help – there was nothing even as serious as Juuna’s arm had been. Most of the cases were bruises or coughs or things that Juuna couldn’t see, like an older man with a concussion. Yoshina told her that she was on general ward duty today, apparently which meant dealing with the sudden needs of the mostly civilians who walked into the hospital. There were two genin as well, who argued the whole time Yoshina attended to them. One had a large cut on his arm, while the other looked guilty, but unhurt. Juuna theorised that he had hurt his friend accidentally.

When it got too dark and Juuna knew her parents would be looking for her, she thanked Yoshina for her time and even bowed, just like how her mother had taught her. Yoshina chuckled a little, then said that she was on general duty tomorrow as well, if Juuna wanted to come back then.

Juuna scurried through the streets happily, unafraid for her safety even in the dark. Her classes at the Academy meant that she knew basic taijutsu, and even then, no one would attack a child in a village where high level ninja were only a shout away.

Juuna was right about her mother looking for her, but that didn’t mean that she regretted the time spent in the hospital. So she went back again the next day, and the day after that, until she was a familiar presence at Yoshina’s heels.

Yoshina never told her to go away or thought any of her questions were dumb. She answered them all with a serious thoughtfulness, like she was pondering the answer before she gave it. The only time she told Juuna to leave was when a group of ninja come in the door, exhausted and dripping blood, bodies carried between them. It scared Juuna, but she didn’t tell anyone, and while Yoshina directed the medics around to deal with the bloody ninja, Juuna hid under the reception desk, teeth chattering. She’d never seen someone covered in that much blood before. She didn’t want to think about it.

When the announcement came, that they’re at war with the Land of Earth, the Academy sped up graduation. Juuna didn’t even officially graduate – Yoshina asked her if she wanted to become a medic, Juuna had told her not to be dumb of course she did, and the next day she was posted at the hospital, a forehead protector acting as an impromptu belt. Her Academy sensei had told her that he knew Juuna well enough to know that she would pass the graduation test easily, so he hadn’t bothered testing her. It made her nervous, but Juuna accepted the role she had at the hospital, easily slipping into the spaces that Yoshina left, sorting bandages and medicine for the more experienced medic, absorbing knowledge and how to use medical jutsu easily.

Juuna had always had good chakra control, and she mastered the basic pain killing jutsu within a week, something she was very proud of. Her parents were glad of her hospital posting as well, she knew. She thought that they were glad she wasn’t going to go and fight on the front. She knew that some of her classmates that had ‘graduated’ with her were already out of the village, scouting and supporting older ninja.

So she worked on her jutsu while caring for the casualties of a war far on her horizon. Few ninja made it all the way back to Konoha, but those that did were usually the worst wounded, but with injuries that wouldn’t kill them immediately.

The war ended with the Yellow Flash destroying Iwa’s army, and Juuna is thirteen and has lived through war. She was still technically an apprentice, but she can basically do everything a journeyman can. Yoshina told her that with the war, paperwork took forever, so she was waiting until it was over to promote Juuna.

It takes another year, but in that time Juuna worked on field skills that had been left to rust since she graduated the Academy. So she reached the rank of chuunin as well as left the mantle of apprentice behind her at the same time, which cheered her. She was a _real_ ninja now, someone with responsibilities and respect. Sure, she was still basically just doing the same things she’d been doing in the hospital for years, but now she had her own patients and she was learning more advanced jutsu from medics other than Yoshina. Juuna had never felt more successful.


	3. First Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Purple lilac means first love.

Nahashi Juuna was nineteen years old when she met the person who would change her life.

It had been a simple day, regular patients and injuries. Juuna had been supervising the recovery ward for a year, so she’s used to flicking through clipboards and making sure that no complications arise from the people resting after their operations.

They have a few different wards – one for civilians only, one mixed, one for ninja only, and one for high level ninja. Juuna was just a chuunin, so she was never normally in charge of the high level ninja ward, but Kenji had called in sick today and since they were shorthanded (they were always shorthanded. There wasn’t enough medics to staff the hospital), Juuna had been assigned it for the day. There was only two ninja resting inside, which was good. The less people Juuna had to care for, the happier she was. One was an older ninja who was content to do her own thing with a scroll, and who had growled at Juuna when she’d asked if she needed anything. A few rooms over, there was a man with a shock of silver hair and who had a surgical mask over his face, who slept so deeply that Juuna wasn’t sure for a second if he was still breathing.

Juuna flipped his chart open. It said he was fresh out of surgery, which is probably why he hadn’t stirred when she had approached. Only jounin used this wing, and she knew enough to know that if he wasn’t moving, something was wrong.

She flipped a page to see what surgery he’d had, and blinked.

                Name: Hatake Kakashi

                Age: 18

                Gender: Male

                Operation: Egg retrieval procedure

Juuna read the file again. The operation said the same thing in a few different places, so it wasn’t a mistake. She looked up at him, weighing the file up. She’d come across mistakes before, but everything looked as if it was in order…

She took the second copy of the file, and went to find the head of surgery. She took a look at the file and grimaced.

“There was a lot of pressure from the Council surrounding this one. It’s all in order – make sure Hatake knows that everything went fine when he wakes up.”

Juuna is left to ponder the mystery of Hatake Kakashi for the next few hours, before just accepting him as someone who she hadn’t come across before. Everyone was different, and she was a doctor, so besides the medical aspects, she wasn’t too worried about what he did when he was outside the hospital.

Hatake woke up that afternoon, when the other jounin had left the wing and another two jounin had been wheeled in, both still unconscious. She was doing a check of the wing when she realised that he was awake, silently watching her as she made sure the bed opposite him was ready if it was needed.

“Oh, Hatake-san, you’re awake,” Juuna said. “How are you feeling?”

“Shitty,” Hatake said. “Is there another way to feel after surgery?”

“There are several ways to feel after surgery,” Juuna said diplomatically. “Are you experiencing nausea or shivering?” Hatake shook his head, so Juuna made a quick note in his file before moving up to lay a hand on his forehead, hand glowing with chakra. She scanned his body quickly, noting that he was fine, if tired.

“Well, it looks like you’re fine for now, which is good. If you start experiencing anything out of the normal, you should tell me immediately, okay? My name’s Nahashi, and I should be around for the rest of the day.”

He nodded once. Juuna chewed her lip for a second before continuing.

“Your surgery went well. The eggs were successfully retrieved, and you shouldn’t have to go under again.”

Hatake seemed to shrink in the bed a little bit, looking aside with his one eye. “That’s good,” he said shortly, and Juuna dropped the subject, message delivered.

Hatake spent the rest of the day silently staring at the ceiling, exchanging curt words with her when she asked him how he was going and came in to give him lunch. Some other medics come in to brief him about what he can and can’t do while recovering, and to give him the meds that he’ll take at home. Juuna had given him a few shots of antbiotics and progesterone tablets throughout the day, and most of what he was being given now was just an extension of that. He’s probably being put on chakra leave, with no strenuous physical activity, which Juuna knows most of the jounin hate. If they’re brooding too loudly in her ward, she’ll tell them to try not to get hurt again, and that cheers most of them up, at least a little. Hatake looked like one of the patients who would scowl if she suggested that.

The other doctors leave, and Juuna checks his chart over one more time before getting ready to discharge him.

“A month is a long time, I know,” she said in consolation, having overheard that part of the conversation. Hatake grunted. “You should find something to occupy yourself with, like gardening maybe, enjoy a little break from work,” Juuna tried to say, attempting to get any response. “I know I would like some time off from the hospital. Some patients can be kind of annoying, don’t you think Hatake-san?”

She saw his cheek twitch, and imagined that he’s smiling under his mask.

“Some of them definitely are annoying,” Hatake said, actually looking at her. “And you should call me Kakashi.”

Juuna smiled, pleased. She’d thought that the dry humour might have gotten through to him. “Only if you call me Juuna,” she replied, and Kakashi nodded once.

“Are you a doctor here?” Kakashi asked, tilting his head slightly.

“Ahh, I’m only filling in for today here, but I am a junior medic, yes.”

Kakashi nods. “Do you have anything else to tell me before I go, after being lectured by that lot?”

“Probably,” Juuna admitted. “Let me look at this.” She picked up his chart and checked it over again. “You should come back in for a check-up if there’s any excessive vaginal bleeding, unusual pains or swelling, or nausea or vomiting. Basically if anything out of the ordinary happens.” She looked up to find him nodding seriously, but there was something in his eye that told her that he wasn’t going to be coming back unless she dragged him in. “Other than that, you have your meds, so you should be all set. Ready to leave?”

“Always,” Kakashi mumbled. Juuna finished all the paper work and then waved him goodbye from reception, not expecting to see him again any time soon.

She was wrong.

The first time Kakashi showed up demanding to see her and only her, she was on admin for the day, organising files for the month. One of the junior aides had burst into the office and told her she was needed immediately at the front. Alarmed, she’d rushed down, only to find a bloodstained but standing Kakashi arguing with the front receptionist. When he saw her, he’d promptly turned to the receptionist, told her that his doctor was here, and walked straight towards her, limping heavily.

Juuna had taken him to an examination room, perplexed as to why he wanted her to take care of him. It’d been almost four months since he’d been in recovery, but she still remembered him and his scowling presence in her ward. It was strange to sit him down and then tell him to take his pants off so she could stitch up the giant slice in his leg that was awkwardly positioned so he couldn’t do it himself. Like a story she’d made up had come to life and was lying stoically on an exam table so she could put stitches in his butt.

He wasn’t wearing the normal jounin blue, and the only part of his uniform that she recognised was the hitae-ate on his forehead, slanted to cover his scarred eye. She doused him in disinfectant, and before she could ask why he wanted her specifically, he thanked her with a smile and disappeared. Juuna stared at the space that he left with a mixture of confusion and annoyance, and felt like it was something that she would be perfecting from now on.

The visits didn’t stop. Juuna dealt with Kakashi when he was in the hospital, which was more often that pretty much any other ninja. Most of the time it was with chakra exhaustion, but he also came in with life threatening injuries as well, which stressed her to no end. Kakashi seemed to think it was funny when he woke up, and then she would resist the urge to rage at him until he pushed her over the edge, and she ended up ranting at him for twenty minutes.

It was… weird. In a good way, maybe. Juuna liked Kakashi, and she liked knowing that when he was hurt, she would know. But because of her familiarity with him and his injuries, she was also getting put on more and more complex surgeries, and having large demands placed on her. Juuna had been content with the role of chuunin medic, the hospital taking up all her time, with missions every now and again to keep her in shape, but now she wasn’t so sure. Kakashi made her question all the things she thought was settled, the ideas that she’d unconsciously decided were fixed, years and years ago. Did she want to stay as a chuunin? It wasn’t like there was tension between countries right now, but that didn’t mean that a war couldn’t break out in the future. If she was deployed, would she know how to fight? Or would she just become a hindrance to her comrades, someone who couldn’t care for themselves?

Juuna had been putting in long hours at the hospital, nearly every day of every week, for almost six years. She was a good medic, but she wasn’t a _great_ medic. Did she want to be good or _great_? When had she settled for the status quo, the norm? When had she stopped pushing herself?

The questions haunted her in between Kakashi’s visits. She was beginning to realise that he was important – after nearly every visit, she would get half a dozen questions from people she didn’t know on the street, mostly other jounin. She didn’t tell them anything – patient doctor confidentiality had to mean something, after all – but it keyed her in as to how highly regarded Kakashi was. The Hokage himself had even talked to her about his visits three times, appearing in the hospital with his ANBU flanking him. Juuna had been tongue tied the first time, stumbling over her report, but it had grown easier every time she’d spoken to him.

The head medics in the hospital knew her name now, as well. She was getting more and more intense, complicated work than she would have expected at her age, and it was pushing her, to see how far she could go. She was spending more nights reading over theory, textbooks open to procedures she was going to be doing soon. It had made others, who were her age or a bit older more bitter, but it wasn’t like she had much time for socialising any more – she had started running every morning, laps around the village to get her stamina up. It killed during the day, but she was getting better. The next step would be to find someone to spar with her to improve her hand to hand fighting. And she had to start mastering her water nature chakra. And dig up some books on genjutsu. Everything she would have to do for achieving jounin rank just gave her a headache.

Kakashi pushed her, subtly and overtly. Whenever he came into the hospital (which was _far_ too often, in Juuna’s opinion. She never saw him visiting anyone, and she still saw him more than she did some of her friends), he snarked and ignored her, but also he always found a way to ask her about her medical jutsu. He seemed to know as much about it as her, even though he obviously wasn’t a medic. He could ask her high level, complex questions, and most of the time she could answer them, although she struggled through some of them. She half-thought that he was testing her – making sure that she could keep up with his medical demands, which were many.

Juuna didn’t know everything, of course – if Kakashi needed something that she either didn’t know about, or was too complicated for her, she’d call in one of the senior medics to help. They were always ready and willing to do whatever was needed when it came to Kakashi. Juuna was sure that he hated it, which was probably another reason he pestered her instead of anyone else. She wasn’t sure if she liked being trusted with Kakashi’s health, or if she was annoyed at being the way he hid from the experienced medics in the hospital.

Either way, she was determined to better herself, and to exceed past Kakashi’s expectations of her.


	4. Acceptance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pink lilac expresses acceptance.

Nahashi Juuna was twenty three years old when she made it to jounin rank.

She was lucky that medical ninjutsu counted as a discipline, or she would have had to spend another few years mastering her water nature chakra. But because of her good chakra control, Juuna had achieved a rank that few other medics reached. It meant that she was experienced, had high tai and genjutsu skills, and was now officially classified as one of the top medics in Konoha.

She’d dropped out of the hospital for the last year and a half to train and take every mission she could get her hands on. So returning to the hospital after all that time was a little strange.

It was Kakashi’s damn fault. Juuna could trace half her troubles in life back to that man, she thought. He’d lashed out at one of the junior medics, seriously injuring him, and then he’d been appointed an all jounin medical team. And she wasn’t a jounin.

She’d been bitter. A little. A lot. She’d come to think of Kakashi as _her_ patient, who came to her first, who sat waiting for her when she was in surgery, only seeing her. She still wasn’t quite sure why he’d chosen her, of all people, but he had. And she had been determined to step up to that expectation, determined to get to jounin rank if it killed her. It hadn’t, but it had come close, a few times.

A certified jounin medic, Juuna took her first step into the hospital, only to see a familiar face scowling near the front reception.

Even on her first day back, it seemed like Kakashi wouldn’t leave her alone.

She whisked him off to the thanks of the desk staff and told him that he was being stupid for not letting the most qualified ninja in the hospital see to his wellbeing. Kakashi only shrugged and did what she told him to as she stitched up a wide gash in his lower back.

Juuna finally finished and leaned back, running her eyes over him, assessing. She didn’t remember some of the new scars on his back, but others, she had taken care of herself. She made him sit up and wrapped a bandage over the area, hiding it from view.

“Thanks,” Kakashi sighed. “I’ve missed having you here.”

Juuna smiled a little. “Yes, well I’m a jounin now, you know. I can patch you up anytime you come in.”

Kakashi blinked in what might be surprise. Juuna wasn’t sure if she’d seen him surprised before.

“You’re a jounin? Since when?”

“Since yesterday,” she told him wryly. “You’re the first patient that I’ve treated in over a year.”

“Oh,” Kakashi said. “Wait,” he continued, as his eye twinkled a little bit. “Was this because of the restrictions put on me about jounin medics?”

“Well,” Juuna said, flustered. “It wasn’t just about one factor.”

“It was!” Kakashi laughed, and Juuna paused to marvel at it, committing the sound to memory. She’d gotten over her crush on Kakashi years ago… mostly. But it was good to see him laugh. She couldn’t remember him ever being this light.

“I can treat you now, and that’s all that matters.” He sat still as she checked on his eye. There was nothing wrong with it, so she snapped her gloves off and let him go. He waved to her as he walked out, grinning, and Juuna smiled with it.

She’d reached one of the highest tiers of medical ninjutsu in Konoha. After this, there was study and her own speciality, if she wanted (and she did want, oh yes), and original research and getting her jutsu better and better, sharpening her control and refining her art. There was always medics to look up to, of course, the heads of the hospital, and the unachievable success of Princess Tsunade. If she could get noticed by Tsunade even once in her life… but it was as unachievable as ever getting to her level. Tsunade hadn’t come back to Konoha in years, and Juuna had no intention of leaving. This was where she belonged, and where she was needed. Konoha had nurtured her into the person she was, and she would nurture it in return.

And if she got to keep pushing herself, ever straining to reach up to Kakashi’s expectations… Then she was ready to reach the top of the world.


End file.
